[conservativegadfly1]

Come again? Lousy campaign? Vernon got 45% of the vote in an apartheid district (that btw the Dems surgically drew him into when he had already filed for the state house in a neighboring, safe GOP district with no incumbent). Elizabeth Dole got 30% of the vote in that same house district. Allow me to put it another way. No other GOP candidate for the state house ran AHEAD of Dole by 15 points in 2002. In fact, Vernon got 70% of the white vote and 20% of the black vote. Imagine if every Repubican ran a "lousy" campaign with those results. If you don't like Vernon for some reason, that's fine. By all means say so. But don't make things up in an effort to belittle him.

[TaxRelief]

Hey CG1,

What do you think about my NC-5 Live thread, debate idea?

[alancarp]

I will stand by the statement: lousy campaign. The ONLY ads I heard were attack ads -- not a single positive message of anything he was for. It was virtually identical to the failed strategies of Lauch Faircloth and Richard Vinroot. For cryin' out loud -- the opponent should have been in jail (and for some reason still hasn't been charged), and he couldn't come up with a winning message.

Insofar as liking Vernon or not, I've said in multiple posts that he's currently got my vote for this district until somebody convinces me otherwise: I do not belittle the man, only that last campaign, and I hope to see a different style this time, for if not -- well, he won't survive the primary.